


Know the water's sweet but blood is thicker

by StrikerEureka



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Fix-It, M/M, Throne Sex, post-BotFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:50:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3236909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikerEureka/pseuds/StrikerEureka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin finds his nephews, and his burglar, still alive at Ravenhill. He tries to atone for his blunders before the battle.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>A huge, imposing shadow circles above, and the wind kicks up again, sending snow scattering between where he sits holding his eldest nephew and where Dwalin stands holding his youngest. He narrows his eyes against the biting sting of the wind and looks up, just as Dwalin does. </i></p><p> <i>“The eagles are here,” he breathes, just as careful talons open and descend upon them.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Know the water's sweet but blood is thicker

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of injuries, nothing super graphic, but still there.

The eagles have come. Great gusts of freezing wind rip up over the ice beneath his feet, whipping up swirling spirals of snow that threaten to freeze the bared skin at his throat. His knees quake only momentarily as he turns away from the battle that still rages below, the horrified sound of Fili’s voice echoing in his ears, begging for help, is the only thing that keeps him moving.

His arm hangs at his side, unfeeling and limp in a way that should terrify him, but it doesn’t, not yet, not when his nephews are still out there, not when Fili is calling out for him. Another sharp squall of air drives him forward and he clutches his unresponsive arm to his chest in a vain attempt at protection.

He hears movement, heavily booted feet pounding against rock, as the snow kicks up into the wind again. He can’t see, not with the sharp glint of sun on ice, and, finally, he yells Fili’s name.

It’s Dwalin that reaches him first, Mahal’s name on his lips as he clutches Thorin’s good shoulder.

“Fili,” Thorin rasps, “where is he?” He hasn’t heard Kili’s voice since Fili kicked himself free of Azog’s grasp and fell from the cliff summit. He’s too afraid to even wonder.

“I’ll find him,” Dwalin assures, a bloodied axe gripped tightly in his hand. He rushes off into the fog with one last glance at Thorin’s shredded arm. 

His head is swimming, the pressure so tight between his eyes, he feels like his head might be crushed under the weight of it. He can’t think. Azog is dead, his nephews… his kingdom on the verge of being truly reclaimed, and the Hobbit… the Hobbit…

“Bilbo,” Thorin whispers. Then again, louder, “Bilbo!” 

Nothing but the thin howl of the wind returns his call. He stumbles back in the direction that Dwalin had come from. Blood drips from his bare fingertips, running in steady, tiny rivulets down his arm and under his bracer, leaving a trail upon the ice as he makes his way to where he last saw the Hobbit.

His legs give when he makes the stone stairs and he comes crashing to his knees. A rush of breath leaves him and his head tips back to stare up at the heavens, and not for the first time, since he shoved Azog’s body from atop him, he wonders if he has survived only to die in the falling action of his own war. 

When he regains his bearing and looks ahead, the chill in his lungs hardens into something impassable and lodges in his throat. Bilbo is there, lying amid a pile of rocks, still as the dead, with blood frozen in a jagged line from his temple to his jaw.

“No,” Thorin rasps. He pushes himself to his feet with one hard shove of his good arm and staggers across the uneven ground to Bilbo’s body. “Please,” he breathes, knees meeting frigid rock as he sinks to the Hobbit’s side. 

He grasps the finger of his leather gauntlet between his teeth and yanks his hand free. Bilbo’s lips are tinged blue in the middle, while the rest of his skin has taken on an ashen tone that strikes fear into the very core of Thorin’s being. The Hobbit cannot be dead.

He places his fingertips at Bilbo’s neck and nearly chokes on his own relief at finding a steady, if slightly elevated, pulse there. He shifts to sit heavily beside him, his left arm wildly protesting the movement when he moves it with a wince. 

“Bilbo,” Thorin whispers, tilting the halfling’s head toward him. “I’m here.” Bilbo doesn’t move, his eyelids don’t flutter, he remains corpselike at Thorin’s side. The taste of bile rises in Thorin’s throat. “I am here,” he repeats softly, sliding his finger into the dirty, blonde curl that has frozen into the blood matting Bilbo’s temple, to pull it free. He strokes his hair gently, fighting for a breath that doesn’t sting in his lungs. 

“Stay with me, Burglar,” Thorin demands quietly. “Stay with me.” 

There are solid footsteps behind him and Thorin glances over his shoulder to see Dwalin’s imposing form emerging from the clearing fog, snow clinging to his boots and up his legs, carrying Kili’s lifeless body in his arms. Thorin’s eyes burn anew as he sits up straighter.

Fili limps beside Dwalin, arm stretched over his hunched shoulders, dragging his right leg along with him.

“Fili,” Thorin breathes to Fili’s whispered, “Uncle.”

His nephew staggers forward with an audible, pained hiss and Thorin rises partway to meet him, grab him under the arm as he stumbles on the steps, and collapses into him. They fall, Thorin back to the ground beside Bilbo’s yet still form, and Fili on his knees astride his uncle’s thigh, both arms around his neck as Thorin fists his working hand in Fili’s hair.

Fili shifts his weight off of his leg, which Thorin can now see is completely blood-soaked, stemming from a clear protrusion of bone from his thigh. 

“Don’t move,” Thorin rasps against his clammy temple, pressing his lips firmly to Fili’s skin and closing his eyes for a moment, just a moment, to solidify this as reality to himself.

Even as Fili’s entire body quakes in pain, he can only feel gratitude. His heir is alive. His _nephew_ is safe. 

He looks then to Dwalin, who has mounted the stairs and stands at their feet. Thorin’s heart is an obtrusive, throbbing weight in his throat, pounding against the skin there, threatening to burst right out of him.

“Is he…” he can’t bring himself to finish.

“Not yet,” Dwalin tells him gravely, looking down at the prince in his arms. “He’s not going to make it, Thorin.”

Fili lets out an agonized exhale against his throat and Thorin holds him all the tighter, fingers speared through his braids. 

A huge, imposing shadow circles above, and the wind kicks up again, sending snow scattering between where he sits holding his eldest nephew and where Dwalin stands holding his youngest. He narrows his eyes against the biting sting of the wind and looks up, just as Dwalin does. 

“The eagles are here,” he breathes, just as careful talons open and descend upon them.

 

\--

 

The foot of the mountain is very nearly chaos. Their enemy driven back, the land stretching between Erebor and Dale is littered with the bodies of Dwarf, Elf, Man and Orc alike. Fires rage through the destroyed city beyond and the smell of Orc flesh is enough to nearly overwhelm Thorin’s stomach. 

The living are scattered, helmetless, stripped halfway from their armor, and searching, calling out for their shield brothers amid the ruin surrounding them all. 

Elves descend upon them the moment the eagles lift off again and Thorin very nearly breaks the hand of the Elf that lifts Fili’s arm and hauls him to his unbroken leg. He only lets go because Dain is there, taking hold of his hand and pulling him to his feet. 

“Come, lad,” Dain tells him, “let’s get that looked at.”

Thorin has very little hope for his arm, at this point, but he follows where Dain leads, because Dwalin has rushed ahead with Kili and the Elf supporting Fili is headed the same way. 

“Bilbo,” he says suddenly, feet stumbling in the dirt as he tries to turn.

“Aye, laddie, one of those tree-jumpers has the little one. Get moving.” Dain gives him a decisive push to the back and Thorin nearly falls over his own boots.

There are no tents set up, yet, nothing beyond the crudest of battlefield medical attention is being provided thus far, and all around him, his kin lie on blankets and bare earth, bleeding and dying, hand-in-hand with the Elves that tend to them. 

When Dain lowers him to sit on a blanket, he looks around wildly until he sees Dwalin placing Kili down as well. Oin is at his side, trumpet to his ear, a moment later, and Thorin interrupts him before he can get a word out.

“Kili needs help.”

Oin turns but already an elf with a long shock of white hair is kneeling over Kili, shouting out in Sindarin. Thorin understands only the most crude of Silvan words and not a single bit of Sindarin, but he doesn’t have to be an Elf to understand that the words being spoken are rushed and laced with urgency. He watches as they work together to quickly strip Kili of his layers until he lies bare chested on the ground. It’s only then that Thorin realizes the extent of his nephew’s injury.

He’s been run through or gored, Thorin doesn’t know, but his skin is nearly gray from blood loss and he hasn’t so much as twitched or moaned with the pain of it since Dwalin appeared holding him at Ravenhill. 

“Kili,” Fili gasps, as another Elf holds him down.

Thorin reaches for Fili, only to have another Elf kneel before him and right him in place again. Thorin watches in silence as the Elf inspects his shoulder through the torn fabric and shattered mail of his layers. When Azog had driven his blade into his shoulder, it had pierced all the way through to the ice beneath him, Thorin had no doubt. 

“I must remove this,” the Elf tells him, speaking the first words of common tongue Thorin has heard since their arrival among the wounded.

Thorin merely nods his assent, feeling dazed and nauseated as his layers are stripped, one after the other, until he’s bared and bloody to the slender-fingered probing of the Elf before him. He hasn’t felt his fingers in longer than he can remember; he keeps his eyes on his nephews as the Elf assesses the damage to his shoulder. 

Fili is striped from the waist down, to his smallclothes, arm stretched out to where Kili lies, hand shaking and eyes a bleary red. There are tear tracks over the bridge of his nose and the arch of his cheek, that gleam wetly through the dirt on his face and into his hair. He reaches only for his brother.

Kili hasn’t moved. 

Thorin’s attention is dragged away and up when a familiar voice calls to him. The Elven king stands before him, a cut high on his cheek the only sign that he was in the thick of things, not even a hair out of place, nor crown askew, he looks the same maddeningly regal as he always does. It brings a curl to Thorin’s lip that turns into a hiss when the Elf packs something green and awful smelling into his wound.

Thranduil looks down at him, something out of place in the set of his brows, gives Thorin pause and stills his tongue. It gives him what he needs to swallow his hatred and gesture to Kili.

“Can you help him?” 

Thranduil’s bright gaze trails over both of his nephews lying nearby, head tipping to the side as if assessing the situation, before he turns back. The Elf kneeling beside Thorin speaks and Thranduil listens carefully before he meets Thorin’s gaze again.

“You will lose function in your arm if we do not act now,” Thranduil tells him calmly and evenly.

The thought would be sobering if he didn’t already feel as though he were wading, chest-deep, through a frozen river. He shakes his head.

“My nephew,” is all he can bring himself to say.

Thranduil gives him that maddening look for a moment, before he tips his head and steps around Fili to obscure Thorin’s view of Kili with his cloak. The Elf attending him scolds him abruptly for moving and Thorin goes still. He seeks out Bilbo’s unconscious form and focuses on it. His chest is now expanding and contracting visibly, stripped down to the mithril that Thorin had presented him with. 

He grits his teeth against the pressure on his shoulder, the way fingers prod at the wound, inside of it, feeling at the muscle, bone exposed to the foul smelling air. He listens as Fili calls out to his brother, to the silence Kili remains in, to the Sindarin words floating above his head, until he feels as though he might go mad from it all. 

Beyond all else, he hears himself, the way he spoke to Bilbo, his actions at the gate that nearly sent the Hobbit to his death. He sees himself sending Fili to scout, sending Kili likely to his death. He clenches his eyes as the wound is packed, the overwhelming nausea at the feel, the smell of it so strong that he can taste whatever the Elf is working into his flesh. 

_Kili_ …

He thinks of Kili. He listens to Fili’s sounds go mumbled and eventually quiet as the fever takes him. And when he opens his eyes, he sees Bilbo. He watches the steady rise and fall of his chest as Oin checks his forehead with the back of his hand.

He has them all, right now, and he needs it, he begs Mahal for the chance to atone for his blunders, his utter failures to his kin and his friends. 

 

\--

 

That first night is spent on the battlefield, wounded soldiers from all factions stretched out before the mouth of the mountain. Thorin keeps watch over his nephews and his burglar, though none of them wake, they are still with him come morning, and he takes it as the first truly good omen of his life.

 

\--

 

Oin changes the bandages on his shoulder, after an Elf repacks the wound with the nauseating poultice at first light. Dwalin helps to bind his arm against his chest, keeping it immobile. He still cannot feel so much as his fingertips, but whatever the Elves are treating his wound with has kept the rot from setting in, so he allows himself the cautious hope that he won’t lose his arm entirely.

The days before the battle had not seen much of anything done to their kingdom aside from the scourge of the treasure hoard in his mad search for the Arkenstone. Nowhere is yet fit to bring the wounded inside, but Thorin refuses to leave his nephews or Bilbo outside for another night. 

He gathers the company, relieved beyond words that they have all made it through alive, and heads in once more. 

Only a mere handful of them actually know the mountain kingdom as well as he does, so he separates them, sends the majority of them off with Dwalin to find rooms that can be easily accessed and just as easily protected, for their wounded. 

Balin, Bofur and Gloin, he stops as the other follow Dwalin further in. 

“You two,” he says, gesturing to Balin and Gloin, “ready payment for the survivors of Esgaroth. I will see it done by midday.”

Balin touches his good elbow and Thorin grasps his forearm. The look in Balin’s eyes is heavy enough that he aches to drop his gaze, but the firm squeeze of his fingers on Thorin’s bare skin draws him back; Balin looks proud and the dark curl of shame in his belly only grows thicker.

“Bofur,” he says, turning to the remaining Dwarf, “bring me the gems of Lasgalen.”

Bofur eyes him carefully, but without judgment. “Are you sure?” he asks carefully, voice gentle as always.

“I want rid of every reminder of what transpired in my madness.”

Bofur grasps the back of his neck and squeezes. He doesn’t say anything so foolish as anyone else might, doesn’t try to tell him _it wasn’t your fault_ , he merely nods and follows Balin and Gloin down into the hoard.

Thorin gives himself a moment to breathe. The light of the rising sun is still cresting over the hills to the east, but it’s bright enough to see down the long stretch of the entryway and out into the battlefield just beyond the gate. It’s enough to show him what he has brought down upon his people.

Mahal gave him another morning with his kin and he will continue to honor that gift, one day at a time, by making good on the promises he swore himself to, surrounded by the dead and the dying last night. He will make this right.

 

\--

 

Word comes that Bilbo has woken while Thorin is at Kili’s bedside. He’s had the boys placed together in Dis’s old room, so that when the other wakes, they won’t be alone. Ori comes and tells him that Bilbo is lucid and demanding to be let out of bed, so Thorin leaves his nephews with the promise to return swiftly, and makes his way to the Hobbit’s temporary chambers.

Bilbo is fending off Oin, who is holding a wet cloth in his hand and insisting on cleaning the blood from his wound.

“Come now, laddie, all that thrashing around you did has only got it bleedin’ again.”

“I am quite capable of washing myself,” Bilbo says indignantly. 

Thorin raps his knuckles against the open door and Bilbo looks at him over Oin’s forearm, which he has trapped between both of his hands. 

“I will assist Master Baggins,” Thorin says, stepping into the room.

Oin inclines his head toward Thorin and hands over the cloth without argument when Thorin makes his way to the bed with his hand outstretched. Bilbo has gone remarkably quiet, not moving or saying a word as Oin makes himself scarce, closing the door behind him. 

And just like that, he’s alone with Bilbo for the first time since Lake-town. He can’t bring himself to count the hours he forced Bilbo to follow him at his side, while the dragon sickness had a hold of him. He can’t even bring himself to look at Bilbo, now.

The Hobbit breathes quietly in the bed, blankets and furs that still smell faintly like ash and smoke, cover him to the waist, and just a thin, cotton tunic covers his chest. Thorin can see dark bruises across the expanse of his chest, even through the light fabric, made worse at where the neck hangs open, laces dangling as he ducks his head to meet Thorin’s gaze.

“Thorin?” Bilbo asks, voice quiet.

Thorin turns to the bowl of water on the night table and submerges the cloth again; it’s warm and smells vaguely medicinal when he wrings it out.

Finally, Thorin sits on the very edge of the bed, ready to move if Bilbo so much as winces at his presence. But he doesn’t, and when he looks Bilbo head-on, the Hobbit’s face lifts in a smile. 

“Ah,” he says, “there you are.”

Thorin holds the cloth out between them, folded over his fore and middle fingers, intent made clear. “May I?” he asks.

Bilbo nods, just the barest inclination of his head, and Thorin carefully brings the washrag to his face. 

“Should have done this last night,” Thorin tells him quietly, swiping gently at Bilbo’s inflamed skin, held together with careful stitching done by that of an Elf. There’s a much longer laceration than Thorin had initially thought, winding from his temple, back into his hair, and down around his ear. 

Bilbo sits quietly and lets him tend to him and for that, Thorin is grateful. He doesn’t know how to begin, where to even start making his amends. 

“Did…” Bilbo starts before trailing off quietly, eyes falling from Thorin’s face to his arm, still bound tightly to his chest. He swallows visibly and Thorin removes his hand to rinse the cloth in the bowl. “Fili and Kili,” he starts again, but makes it no further than their names.

Thorin’s chest aches, tight with stress, his whole body tense. He lets out a quiet breath and brings the washrag back to Bilbo’s head, wiping gently at his blood-matted curls now.

“Fili will recover,” he offers quietly.

Bilbo gives him a moment but Thorin can’t bring himself to continue; he can’t even think the words, let alone say them.

“Is Kili…”

Thorin’s hand falls to his own lap and he closes his eyes. Bilbo shifts further upright and before Thorin knows it, his head is being borne down against Bilbo’s chest and his breath catches so painfully that he can’t even inhale. He drops the cloth and brings his arm up around Bilbo, fisting his hand in the soft cotton of his tunic. There are tears, hot and furious, burning at his eyes and he keeps them clenched so he might keep this shame to himself.

Bilbo cards his fingers through his hair and holds him steady as he struggles to regulate his breathing. He feels so wildly out of control of himself and he hates it; though it is nothing like the lack of control he possessed over himself a mere two days ago, so he embraces it as fiercely as he can.

When he finally manages to sit upright again, Bilbo’s hands go to his jaw, not letting him pull away like he wants, but instead pressing their foreheads together. Thorin keeps his eyes firmly shut and licks at his bottom lip.

“He fights,” he tells Bilbo on an exhalation of breath. “His wounds… he’s not likely to ever wake again.”

“Thorin…” Bilbo whispers. His voice is quiet and calm and so familiar to Thorin, that it soothes some deep, aching part of his very spirit that’s been clawing at him ever since they opened that blasted door.

Thorin sits upright, bringing his hand around to fist in the front of Bilbo’s tunic and meets his gaze. Bilbo’s eyes are watery and there’s a flush to his cheeks that spreads under the dark circles ringing his eyes; Thorin brushes his thumb against the ring, like a bruise, and watches as the halfling’s eyes fall shut.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Thorin breathes. Bilbo shakes his head once and Thorin palms his cheek, thumb still brushing over his heated skin. “Everything I did, Bilbo… I can’t excuse—“

“It wasn’t you,” Bilbo tells him, clearing his throat when his voice comes out hoarse. He shakes his head and takes hold of Thorin’s wrist in both hands. “You were sick.”

“I was blind. I risked everything. I nearly killed you.” Just vocalizing the deed, acknowledging it, accepting what he’s done, drives the wedge deeper into his heart until he can hardly breathe from it. “I am so sorry.”

Bilbo shushes him, turning his face into Thorin’s palm and pressing his chapped lips to it. “You were _sick_ ,” Bilbo stresses again.

“You did what only a true friend would do.”

“I did it because I love you,” Bilbo tells him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

It’s not the first time he’s said it, it wouldn’t even be the first time that Thorin has returned the sentiment, but it still jolts him like a hit from a warg. 

“How can you still say that? After what I’ve done?”

“Because I forgive you,” Bilbo says, as though it’s just that simple, just that easy for him. “And because it never stopped being true.”

Thorin can’t help but stare at this creature, this perfect little creature that is offering him forgiveness for his most grievous of crimes, as easily as one would offer their hand in greeting. He is amazed, countless times over at the capacity of this being in front of him.

Bilbo guides him down until their foreheads are pressed together again, and Thorin shuts his eyes. The Hobbit holds his hand in his lap and when he squeezes, Thorin squeezes back.

“It’s more than I deserve,” Thorin tells him honestly.

Bilbo shakes his head only enough to be felt, fingers coming up to scratch through the thick of his beard, under his chin.

“You deserve it,” Bilbo assures him, quietly. Thorin focuses on the steady rise and fall of Bilbo’s chest and squeezes his fingers when they lace with his own. He tries to believe it.

 

\--

 

The flurry of activity that follows, in the coming days, is enough to leave Thorin feeling like he wants to barricade himself back within the mountain. He first oversees the payment of his debt to the Bowman, walking out to meet him, halfway between Erebor and Dale, with Bilbo and Dwalin at either side.

He offers no apology and neither does the Man, as Bard gives him his hand to shake in a gesture of truce. There’s a look of gratitude there that Thorin does not feel deserving of, but he nods his head regardless.

The Bowman, in return, reaches into his jacket and hefts a tightly wrapped bundle of red fabric and holds it out to him. Thorin, to his great shame, can’t even bring himself to take it from him. He looks down, and when Bilbo meets his gaze, he tips his head in the Man’s direction and Bilbo steps forward to retrieve it for him.

No words are spoken until they cross the threshold of the gate.

“Give it to Dwalin,” he instructs quietly.

Bilbo hands it over without disrupting the fabric. Thorin can’t see its light, the glowing halo of color that the stone emanates, and he doesn’t want to. 

“Keep it from my sight until I decide what to do with it,” he tells Dwalin. There’s a look there, in his eyes, the set of his brows, the gentle lift of his mouth, which Thorin doesn’t want to parse. The warrior touches his shoulder before departing to follow his orders. 

 

\--

 

Thorin takes Bofur and Bilbo with him to meet with the Elven king, who arrives on horseback, with only his son as company, his sword at his side and another strapped to his back. When he dismounts, Thorin gestures Bofur forward and the other Dwarf opens the ornately decorated, silver chest in his hands. Thranduil’s face betrays little, but the glimmer of his family’s gems shines against his widened eyes, and when he lifts his gaze again, Bofur closes the box. 

Thorin is loath to admit that without the Elven king’s forces, the outcome of the battle would have been decidedly different. Without the Elven healers afterward, he fears what could have happened to his kin. He isn’t above gratitude.

The skepticism lacing his delicate features eases only when Thorin takes the chest from Bofur and hands it over without a word. The look of genuine relief at the weight of it in his grasp lifts his shoulders as he rights himself. The princeling takes the chest from his father and Thranduil slowly loosens the sword strapped to his back. He catalogues his movements carefully, showing no threat, and holds it out, in turn.

Thorin would recognize the dragon-tooth handle of Orcrist anywhere; he has no need to unsheathe it to validate its authenticity. He hadn’t even noticed its absence since he’d disemboweled the white Orc with it; he certainly hadn’t missed it, but now that it’s being offered to him, he finds that he wants it. He merely takes it in his hand, accepting it for the gesture that it is, with a slight inclination of his head. The Elven king returns it, and without a single word, both he and his son mount their horses and head back toward the city.

 

\--

 

Though much of it has been destroyed, the mountain hot springs still flow through the intricate aqueduct system that his great-great-grandfather had implemented so long ago. Thorin hasn’t had a bath that didn’t involve wading through a cold river since departing from Rivendell, and he is all too glad to shed his clothing and step down into one of the natural pools that remains filled to overflowing. 

Bilbo slips in with him, sitting at his side, with his head tipped back and mouth parted in a silent groan of relief. His curls stick wetly to his forehead and his neck as he settles in, and Thorin can’t keep his eyes off of him.

His shoulder throbs, still tightly wrapped, and he sits up high enough to keep it out of the water, even though all he wants is to submerge himself like the Hobbit has.

Bilbo drifts in front of him, placing both hands on his knees, and looks at him. Thorin lifts his wet hand to cup his cheek and draw him in.

“Your arm,” Bilbo says, hesitating, when Thorin tries to ease him up to straddle his thighs.

“My arm will be fine. The rest of me, however, will not, if you do not come closer,” Thorin rumbles.

Bilbo situates himself carefully on Thorin’s lap, while the king looks on, holding himself very still, so as not to jostle his shoulder. Thorin is aware of the pressure on his immobile arm, but not so much the sensation or feeling of skin against his own; he knows Bilbo is touching him, but he can’t feel it as he should.

“Still nothing?” Bilbo asks after another quiet minute, filled only by the sounds of the water flowing above them.

Thorin tips his head up to meet Bilbo’s gaze and shakes his head. “I don’t know what use it is to keep it,” Thorin tells him, voice feeling thick as mud in his throat, “but the idea of losing it entirely…”

Bilbo silences him with a light brush of their lips. “It won’t come to that,” Bilbo tells him. Even though the Hobbit has next to no practical medicinal skills, Thorin takes the comforting words for what they are and nods.

“As long as I still have one good hand to touch you with, I cannot ask Mahal for more,” Thorin murmurs, leaning in to press his lips to the halfling’s pulse. He mouths at it, pressing teeth and tongue along the wet skin, leading down to his shoulder and back up to his smooth, wet jaw, working the heated skin until Bilbo is gripping his shoulders in both hands and tipping his head back for more.

“Beautiful,” Thorin rasps, mouth trailing over his throat to the other side to lavish equal attention upon this untouched skin, as well.

Throin squeezes his hip, pulling him closer along his thighs, until the hardness between Bilbo’s legs is pressing against his own. Bilbo lets out a choked sound and slides his hands up into Thorin’s hair, pulling him abruptly away from the certain bruise Thorin was working into his skin, and slots their mouths together. Thorin squeezes his arse and pulls him even closer as everything winds tighter between them. 

“I would have you here, Master Baggins,” Thorin growls against his mouth, fingers seeking out the tight hole between his cheeks and pressing hard against it.

Bilbo jolts against him and moans hotly, pulling back enough to shake his head. “Not until you’re healed,” Bilbo tells him breathlessly, even as Thorin continues to stroke a finger firmly over his hole.

“Let me have you,” Thorin breathes, pulling Bilbo in to grind against him.

Bilbo’s hands smack loud and wet against the rock on either side of Thorin’s shoulders as he attempts to steady himself. His eyes are closed and the blissful look on his face, as his mouth drops open, is enough to have Thorin’s hips lifting against him. 

“When you—when you heal,” Bilbo insists. “ _Thorin_.” He snags both hands in Thorin’s hair and pulls him into a kiss when the king works his longest finger into him without warning.

“Then touch me,” Thorin tells him. He nearly attempts to jerk his other arm forward, but stops before the strain in his shoulder can tell him to remain still. He wants to clutch Bilbo to him, guide his head down to kiss him, eat the moans right from his lips, touch his hair, feel the smoothness of his belly, to grasp his cock and stroke him off between them. He wants so badly. He clenches his eyes when Bilbo kisses him and wraps both of his hands around his length. He breathes out harshly against the halfling’s cheek and presses his forehead to his uninjured temple.

“Together,” he demands, drawing Bilbo in even closer with the hand on his arse, his finger still buried deep. “Both of us.”

Bilbo lets out a tiny, choked sound and writhes forward and then back against Thorin’s finger as it thrusts in and out of him. Bilbo tries, sliding as close as he can without putting pressure on Thorin’s arm, and slides their cocks together. His hands are small; both of them are wrapped around the heat of them together, as he tries to work up a rhythm.

Time blurs as Thorin pants into the sweaty skin of his cheek, tongue trailing out to taste the damp, salty flavor of it, and Bilbo turns into him, catching his mouth in a kiss that steals the last of Thorin’s sense from him. He fingers Bilbo roughly, drawing him forward over and over into the clutch of the Hobbit’s own hands, and Bilbo ruts against him like a wild thing.

There’s an ache in his wounded shoulder and a stinging bite at his jaw, where Bilbo latches on with his teeth to smother his whining breaths, and it feels so good. It’s hot and solid and _alive_ , and so much more than he ever thought he deserved. Bilbo’s cock against his own is hard and Thorin wants to touch so badly, but he’s afraid to let go of the smaller body, afraid to upset the balance he maintains, writhing on his finger and into his own hand, against Thorin’s straining length. 

“Thorin,” Bilbo breathes, letting go with one hand to fist in his hair, tugging hard on his braid, until Thorin gasps at the pain of it. Bilbo whimpers and thrusts forward, hard and wild, dropping his hand again to rub at the head of his own cock, and then he’s coming, jerking and moaning in his release.

Thorin holds him steady, finger slipping free so he can wind his arm around the Hobbit and keep him upright. Bilbo sinks against his chest, the hand still on Thorin’s aching prick lies motionless for the few moments it takes Bilbo to regain his breath, and then he’s stroking fast and hard, pinching over the exposed head on every upstroke, and Thorin gasps for it. 

“ _Bilbo_ ,” he whispers, nothing but reverence and desire in his voice, hips thrusting up into the knowing touch, one that he hasn’t felt in far too long. 

It isn’t long before he’s digging bruises into Bilbo’s hip and arching up, his strangled shout of release echoing in the deep of the caverns around them. 

“What was that?” Bilbo asks, his voice still hoarse, face flushed beyond the heat of the water around them. 

Thorin cracks an eye open and lifts his head. “What?”

“What you just said. In Dwarvish.”

“Khuzdul,” Thorin corrects only to have Bilbo’s wet hand grip his jaw and shake his head back and forth.

“Cheeky.”

Thorin grins under his fingers and sighs, sinking back against the rock again, bringing Bilbo forward with him, leaning against his chest and the arm affixed to it. 

“Amrâl’im’ê,” Thorin repeats, loud enough to be heard. Bilbo raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Love of mine,” Thorin tells him, quiet and easy.

The hand on his face slides down to rest gently over his throat. In any other situation, with any other living being, the gesture would make Thorin feel threatened. But Bilbo’s hands, roughened from the journey, but still gentle and much softer than his own, stroke carefully over his pulse; the sensation is soothing and Thorin trusts him implicitly with his bared throat.

Bilbo leans in to kiss him, soft and chaste, letting it linger, before settling in, as much as he can around Thorin’s wounded arm. He rests his head on Thorin’s working shoulder and Thorin rubs his hand up and down his back. 

“If I had a secret language,” Bilbo says after a while, voice quiet against the stone, “I’d tell you I loved you in it as well.”

“Tell me in common tongue,” Thorin responds, simply. 

Bilbo nudges in closer, until the damp tip of his nose is touching Thorin’s jaw and murmurs it into his skin. It’s more of a vibration than anything else, but Thorin feels it, knows it, tangibly, and it’s better than every other time he’s ever heard those words.

 

\--

 

The next morning, Fili’s fever breaks and he comes awake asking for his brother. Thorin clasps his searching hand and brings it to his chest. His hair is a snarled mess and the beads are missing from the ends of his mustache, leaving the braids there loose and frayed out.

“He sleeps yet,” Thorin tells him quietly.

“Has he woken?” Fili asks, eyebrows drawn together with worry.

Thorin can only shake his head. The look on Fili’s face is so heartbreakingly devastating that Thorin feels more at a loss now, than ever before. Only the fear he felt upon searching for his family after the evacuation of the mountain, all those years ago, has ever been more potent.

“Can I see him?”

Thorin nods and Bilbo, who has been silent at the foot of the bed, moves forward to help Fili to his feet. Thorin grips his hand and Bilbo pulls back the covers to free his tightly-bound leg. It’s a task, getting Fili up and steady, but once he’s on his feet, he’s steadier than Thorin had thought he would be. Together, they make their way slowly across the room to where Kili lies.

He’s still deathly pale and his hair is pulled back into loose braids and knotted together in a bun atop his head, to keep it from sticking to his brow with the sweat his ever-present fever causes. Fili lets go of Thorin to sit on the edge of the bed. His hand shakes when he reaches out to tuck a loose curl of hair, too short to be confined to braids, behind Kili’s ear.

“I need a cloth,” Fili says, voice quiet.

Bilbo retrieves a washbasin and fills it with water warmed by the hearth, handing Fili a dry, folded washrag. 

Neither Thorin nor Bilbo says a word as Fili wets the cloth and sets about cleaning his brother’s face, then his hands, and, after a long moment of hesitation, the wound in his chest. Thorin almost stops him, when Fili upsets the bandages, but his fingers move with such care and ease, that he remains silent.

It’s only when Fili’s head dips and his hair obscures his face, while his shoulders wrack up with the hitch in his breath, that Thorin touches him. The hand on Fili’s shoulder is clutched by the hand not holding the washrag, and Thorin grasps the shaking fingers in a vise grip until Fili lets him go.

 

\--

 

“Perhaps I have asked for too much,” Thorin says aloud, later. Bilbo sits before the fire, his back to the flames, with a book Thorin isn’t sure he can read open on his thighs. 

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Thorin has been sitting silently in a chair that has certainly seen better days, staring off at the darkened corners of the room, far enough from the hearth that the light doesn’t touch them.

“I wanted this mountain back, more than anything,” he says quietly. “We had a home in Ered Luin, but always this mountain plagued me.” He sits forward and rests his forearm against his thigh. “If I hadn’t tried, Bilbo, I know for certain that I would have faded out. Whatever is in me, my lifeblood, my spark,” he shakes his head, and Bilbo closes the book, setting it aside to move closer, sitting at his feet, “whatever you may call it, it would have fizzled out.”

Bilbo nods like he understands, like he hadn’t spent the entirety of his life coddled in Bag End, with no greater concern than that of his garden and the dirt under his nails at the end of the day. But then, Thorin knows, Bilbo cared enough about thirteen strangers to come along with them; he does understand, even if he may not know the ache of it himself.

Thorin turns his hand over and Bilbo takes it.

“I got you.” He stops and licks his bottom lip, drawing it into his mouth to worry it a moment. “I reclaimed my home. Fili has survived. Mahal has given and given and I have taken it all, but Kili…”

Bilbo squeezes his fingers. “Thorin, no. You haven’t asked for hardly anything but what you _need_ ,” Bilbo assures him. “Your home, your people, your safety. Wanting that for your family, wanting them _alive_ , is not asking for much.”

He turns Thorin’s hand and kisses his open palm. 

“Maybe Mahal will take my arm and give me back my nephew,” he says quietly, looking down at the unfeeling appendage.

“Maybe, Thorin, I don’t know,” Bilbo tells him, getting to his knees in the spread of Thorin’s thighs and putting his hand upon his limp fingers. “But you’re not asking for too much. You deserve this. All of it.”

Thorin doesn’t do more than close his eyes when Bilbo leans up to kiss him. He keeps them shut when gentle fingers trail over his brow, the lines at the corners of his eyes, and down his cheeks. Neat, clean nails scrape against his beard and over his bottom lip, and Thorin feels himself begin to relax, if only slightly.

Bilbo makes an amused sound, the bumps of his knuckles rubbing at the underside of his chin.

Thorin looks at him. “What?”

“This is the longest I’ve ever seen your beard,” Bilbo says, trailing his fingers down over the scratchy hairs on his throat. 

Thorin brings his own hand up to palm his own neck with a thoughtful hum. “I suppose it is.”

He had always taken such care, even on the journey back to the Mountain, to keep it neatly trimmed and short. It’s far from long, by Dwarvish standards, but it’s the longest it’s been for him in quite some time. 

“I always told myself that I’d grow it back when I became king,” he tells Bilbo quietly.

“Did you have it long before?”

Thorin nods, looking down at him, bringing his hand to Bilbo’s smooth cheek. It’s not the first time he considers how strange it is to feel such youthful skin beneath his fingers.

“Nothing like my father or grandfather but aye,” he lifts his hand to his collarbone. “About there.” Bilbo smiles at him. “It was singed, the day the dragon came. I vowed I would not grow it again until my people had been avenged.”

“And now they have,” Bilbo murmurs quietly.

Thorin nods and repeats, just as softly, “Now they have.”

“And now you grow a massive beard.”

Thorin lets out a snort and shakes his head, hand reaching back to cup Bilbo’s neck as he draws the Hobbit up into a kiss.

 

\--

 

Fili is asleep on his side in Kili’s bed, when Thorin comes to wake him. His leg is splinted and tightly wrapped, but he still needs assistance to get to his feet without jostling his brother. He’s not keen to leave the room, but he follows when Thorin insists. The walk to the throne is a long one, and the stress of it shows in a light sheen of perspiration across his forehead. 

Bilbo is waiting for him, standing beside Balin and Dwalin, as requested. The rubble along the pathway has been cleared and the deeper cracks in the stone mostly repaired, though the damage to the throne itself is still evident. 

Fili looks at him with a questioning look when they come to a stop near the dais.

“Thorin?” he asks quietly.

“Fili,” he starts, voice low and private, though he knows the others can hear, his words are for his nephew alone. “We must send word to your mother, about Kili.”

Fili immediately shakes his head. “She can’t see him like this, Uncle.”

Thorin puts a steadying hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Fili, she must know. He may not wake.” Fili is shaking his head and Thorin cups his jaw to stop the movement; he watches as his eyes ring red and wet. “Your mother must know.”

“If you tell her…” he trails off but Thorin can read the words as plain as daylight on his face. If he sends word to Dis, then what’s happening to Kili is real. 

Thorin drops his hand to squeeze the back of Fili’s neck and his nephew’s head tilts forward until their foreheads are touching, fever-bright skin against his own. The silence that passes between them stretches on, but Fili seems to draw strength from it. When he stands upright again, his shoulders are set and his face is stoic, even if his eyes are still damp. He nods at his uncle and Thorin lets his hand fall away to gesture at Balin.

The elder Dwarf steps to them and in his hands is a crown once belonging to his father. Fili’s eyes go wide when he understands the implication and makes to go down on his knees, despite his broken leg.

“Stand,” Thorin commands gently. “Fili, my kin, my nephew, my heir…” he rests it atop Fili’s golden head, situating the dark metal amid the tangled braids. “I may yet lose my arm, but you will be my new one. You will stand at my left, beside your brother, Mahal willing, until such a time as I can no longer call myself king.”

Fili swallows hard and his eyes clench briefly. He barely manages a nod before he’s got his arms around Thorin. He can’t remember the last time, before Ravenhill, that he embraced someone that wasn’t Bilbo, but he welcomes it now, holding his nephew tightly, until Fili eases away. With one last touch to his neck, Thorin turns now to Bilbo.

At a gesture, the Hobbit steps forward and Thorin turns to face him, confusion writ clear upon his features. When prompted, Dwalin hands him a simple circlet of bronze, intricately carved and adorned ornately with the darkest of rubies. Bilbo’s eyes go wide and he immediately begins to shake his head.

“Thorin—“

“Bilbo Baggins,” Thorin interrupts, voice still gentle, yet with all the command of a king. The Hobbit’s mouth still hangs open, slightly, but he doesn’t speak. “Amrâl’im’ê, my consort, my burglar…” he carefully places the crown he himself had once worn in his childhood upon the Hobbit’s head, aware of the delicate stitching still present at his temple. “You will stand at my right. You will guide my decisions and assuage my temper.” Bilbo huffs a laugh and Thorin smiles at him. His hair curls around the soft curve of the circlet, partially obscuring the smallest of the stones. He looks beautiful.

“You will guide me, as you have since we met,” Thorin concludes quietly, fingers trailing over the exaggerated point of Bilbo’s ear, watching his eyes close at the touch.

Fili makes a noise of discomfort and Thorin turns to him.

“Come on, lad,” Dwalin says, reaching for Fili’s arm to drag it over his shoulders, “let’s get you back to bed.”

Thorin allows them to pass, with Balin following. Bilbo stands at his side until they’re alone, and then brings his hands up to touch the crown upon his head.

“Thorin,” he starts gently, “this is… too much. I don’t need a crown.”

Thorin takes his seat upon the throne and leans back into the stone. It’s no more comfortable now than it was in his madness, and it puts him at unease. He beckons Bilbo forward.

“It’s very comely on you,” Thorin tells him.

“It would look better on you,” Bilbo says, stepping up on the dais until they’re eyelevel with one another.

“I won’t wear a crown again until my coronation. Not until my people arrive.” 

Bilbo nods like he understands, his hands falling away from the cool bronze in his hair.

“I would have fashioned it myself, yours and Fili’s both, had I the hands for it,” Thorin tells him quietly. 

Bilbo stands knee-to-knee with him and reaches for his hand. Thorin draws him up and Bilbo comes willingly, kneeling on either side of his thighs, settling his weight carefully atop him.

“I am not glass, Bilbo,” he tells the Hobbit, using his hand to draw him forward by the small of his back. 

“I’ve never thought you were.” Bilbo’s voice is quiet in the cavernous room, gentle and easy. 

Thorin tips his head to the side to look at the warm tone of metal in his hair. “It suits you.”

“I’ve never cared much for such things,” Bilbo tells him.

“You will wear it for me, will you not?” 

Bilbo sits back on his heels and gazes upward, as if in thought, his fingers trailing over Thorin’s shoulders. 

“What did you call me? Your consort?” 

“You are. You will be,” Thorin tells him assuredly. Of this, of Bilbo, he has no doubts. There is nothing but truth in what the Hobbit means to him. He has reclaimed his homeland, but it would mean little without this one to share it with. 

Bilbo hums quietly. He kisses Thorin, and whispers, “Then I suppose I must,” against his lips.

Thorin tilts his head and deepens the kiss. Bilbo’s lips part instantly under the pressure of his tongue; he moans quietly into Thorin’s mouth and the King begins to harden rapidly under the weight of the halfling atop him.

“I can’t give you children, you know,” Bilbo murmurs against his cheek when Thorin pulls out of the kiss to press his mouth to Bilbo’s jaw.

Thorin makes an amused noise around the bite of skin between his teeth. “I have heirs,” Thorin tells him simply. “You just watched me crown one.” He kisses his way back to Bilbo’s mouth as a hand drops to his groin and squeezes. “Wicked little thing,” Thorin tells him, arching up under the pressure of Bilbo’s fingers.

Bilbo makes a noise of affirmation and kisses him hard. 

Thorin works at Bilbo’s belt with his only good hand, and it comes apart after a moment of struggle. Bilbo sheds his outer robe, leaning back on Thorin’s thighs to let it slide down his arms. The thought of doing this here, on the throne of his forebears, has him arching up again, pressing his hardened length to Bilbo’s backside. 

“What you do to me,” he breathes.

Bilbo opens the laces of his trousers with deft, sure movements. He is unabashedly enthusiastic, where Thorin feared he would shy. Small, warm hands pull his length from his opened smallclothes, and bear him to the chilled air of the room. Thorin grips the Hobbit’s neck as he crushes their lips together to smother any sound he might make.

Bilbo pushes his own trousers down to his knees and kneels up, one hand on Thorin’s shoulder, the other gripping his length firmly.

“Bilbo,” Thorin rasps, still clasping the Hobbit’s neck, “you can’t, we haven’t—“

His words are cut off when Bilbo lines him up and starts to push down. He’s wet, slick between his cheeks, and the head of Thorin’s cock eases in when Bilbo bears down on him.

“You wicked thing,” Thorin gasps, realizing what Bilbo must have done before meeting him here. Bilbo’s body shakes atop him as his arse comes flush with Thorin’s thighs and Thorin holds him steady with a soothing hand on the back of his neck. 

Bilbo’s forehead is still pressed to his shoulder when he starts to rock. The movement is slow at first, tight and so hot that Thorin winces against the feel of it. Shaking fingers fist in his hair, thumbs hooked through the braids at his temples, and pull. Thorin’s responding groan is almost loud enough to echo.

He listens to the halfling pant against his throat as his movements become easier, more certain, rising up and slamming himself back down. Thorin wants to see his face. He nudges his nose into Bilbo’s cheek and the Hobbit sits upright, obliging. He isn’t expecting the string of filth that begins pouring from his mouth.

“Do you think…” Bilbo breathes, voice grating in his throat before he swallows, “that you were conceived like this? Right here?”

“ _Bilbo_ ,” Thorin gasps, fist pulling tight in Bilbo’s curls. He can feel the metal of the circlet adorning Bilbo’s head, cool through the heat emanating from his scalp.

“Or am I the first to ride a king upon this throne?” Bilbo asks, as though Thorin hadn’t spoken a word.

Thorin’s whine is wholly undignified. He pulls Bilbo to him, burying his face in his throat and biting hard at the sweat-slicked skin of his neck, teeth hard over his pulse and tongue soothing behind it. He pants the Hobbit’s name as fingers dig into the barely exposed skin of his sides, and the pace atop him increases.

Thorin can hardly meet his thrusts, but Bilbo doesn’t need him to. He rocks himself faster and harder, taking Thorin’s length into his body over and over until the king can hardly catch his breath. The only word that remains in him is Bilbo’s name and he breathes it repeatedly with nothing but reverence.

Bilbo brings a hand to Thorin’s mouth, rasping a desperate, “Lick,” and Thorin does as he is told, laving his tongue over the overheated skin and biting the tip of his finger. Bilbo strokes himself in quick, tight strokes that Thorin has to crane his neck downward to look at. He’s drawn up into a kiss before Bilbo comes, spurting against Thorin’s stomach.

Thorin still wears his thick tunic, and while he can’t feel the Hobbit’s release upon his skin, he can _smell_ it, he can hear it in Bilbo’s shuddery gasps for breath, he can feel it in the shaking of his body as he tries to continue his movements. 

He noses at Bilbo’s jaw, trailing the tip of his tongue to the sensitive point of Bilbo’s ear, where he breathes, “make your king come.”

Bilbo shudders hard and lets himself go, planting both hands on the stone above Thorin’s shoulders as he steels his quaking frame and picks up the rocking of his hips once more.

“That’s it,” Thorin encourages breathily, hand coming to rest on Bilbo’s hip, jerking him forward over and over. It doesn’t take long, post-orgasmic contractions are still jolting through Bilbo’s body, and the tight grip of him, combined with the wet press of the Hobbit’s open mouth against his own, has him grinding his hips upward and coming. 

Bilbo collapses on top of him, thighs shaking hard and breath still coming too quickly in hot puffs against the sweaty skin Thorin’s throat.

Now, more than ever, Thorin wishes he had the use of both of his hands. He wants to hold Bilbo steady at his hip and cradle the back of his head at the same time. He settles for wrapping his arm around his waist and holding tightly. Bilbo hasn’t made a move to let Thorin slip out of him yet, he hasn’t moved at all, really, and Thorin isn’t anxious to have him shift away.

The only movement comes when a hand working its way between their overheated bodies to take hold of his incapacitated hand. He realizes with a start that he can feel it. Bilbo’s much more slender fingers slip between his own, and while he can’t force them to move yet, the sensation of skin and heat and pressure is shockingly real.

“I can feel that,” Thorin tells him on a quiet exhale.

Bilbo lifts his head from his shoulder then and glances down between them before meeting his gaze. 

“Yes?” he asks.

Thorin nods. The smile on Bilbo’s lips is gentle and sincere, and almost too much to meet head-on. 

“We should move, before someone catches us like this,” he finally says. Bilbo sighs deeply but doesn’t offer a protest. He merely squeezes Thorin’s fingers before he eases off of him.

 

\--

 

The following morning, Kili’s eyes flutter open while Oin is checking his wound. Those dark eyes, exhausted though they may be, settling on his own nearly brings Thorin to his knees. He grasps blindly for Kili’s hand, breathing out his name as Oin steps back from the bed.

“Kili?” Fili’s anxious voice comes, followed by the rustle of sheets as he climbs quickly out of bed. Oin helps him over as Kili’s eyes slip closed again.

“Kili?” Thorin echoes him.

His eyebrows draw up, creasing his forehead just slightly, before his face goes slack and his eyes slit open again.

“ _Brother_ ,” Fili breathes, taking hold of his other hand. Kili’s head doesn’t move, but his eyes trail over toward the sound of Fili’s voice. “Brother, are you with me?”

Kili’s lips part, but no sound emerges. His eyes fall shut once more and this time, they don’t open.

“Kili?” Fili whispers, voice tightening with fear as he shakes his arm a bit. “ _Kili_?”

“He’s just fallen asleep again, lad,” Oin assures him, nudging his way closer to the bed again. “He needs to rest.”

“But he’ll wake again?” Fili asks, glancing quickly up from his brother to Oin and then to Thorin.

Thorin holds his breath for the answer as much as Fili does. Oin lifts the bandages out of the way and checks the edges of the wound. He makes a considering sound as he presses around Kili’s ribs.

“Waking now is a good sign, laddie,” Oin says, replacing the bandages. “His ribs are starting to heal. I see no reason he shouldn’t recover.”

Fili’s relief is palpable in the very air surrounding them. He grips his brother’s hand to his chest and presses his forehead to his shoulder. Thorin releases Kili’s hand to squeeze Fili’s forearm. 

When his nephew looks up, his eyes are damp but his face is the portrait of relief. 

“Send for mother,” he tells Thorin.

He dispatches a raven that afternoon for Ered Luin.

 

\--

 

That night is one of the most relaxing of Thorin’s life; it’s by far the most relaxing since he came of age, and the only since his people were driven from their home. He bathes with Bilbo in a large copper tub in front of the fireplace in their chambers, his arm loose in the water as he tries repeatedly to wiggle his fingers. Sensation has just barely begun to return to the appendage, let alone any sort of motor control, however, so it’s all for naught.

Bilbo massages his forearm in the warm water with careful fingers and Thorin uses his working hand to card his own through Bilbo’s damp curls. The Hobbit dozes against his chest, comfortable and warm, and Thorin contents himself with feeling his heartbeat through contact with his back.

“When will your sister come?” he asks after they’ve dressed and crawled beneath the layers of blankets and furs atop the bed. 

“Soon, I hope,” Thorin says, twisting the hair at his temple back into a tight braid. 

Bilbo watches intently. “How you can do that with one hand, I will never understand.”

Thorin smiles down at him. “Can you braid, Master Hobbit?”

Bilbo shrugs. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had occasion to.” Thorin raises his eyebrows. “Yes,” Bilbo continues, “I suppose so, then.”

As Thorin’s hand comes to the tips of his hair, he twists it up and Bilbo takes the bead from the bedside table to affix it to the end for him. When his hands fall away, Thorin brings his own to trace the curve of Bilbo’s ear. It’s large and lovely and the skin is as smooth as the rest of him, save his feet, and Thorin loves it.

The circlet is set aside for the night, leaving his hair free, curling damply around the elegant shell of his ear and Thorin touches that too. Bilbo’s eyes fall closed and Thorin kisses his lids gently.

“I would braid your hair, if you would allow it,” Thorin rumbles quietly.

Bilbo looks up at him, lashes fluttering as he blinks a few times. “I would,” he says at length.

Thorin’s fingers trail behind his ear to a thick, blonde lock. “Here,” he tells him, voice still gentle. “You would have to grow it a bit, give me more to work with, but this is enough, for now.”

“You can,” Bilbo tells him as Thorin rubs his fingertips against his scalp. His eyes are shut once more and a look of near-bliss is upon his face. Throin cups the back of his neck and pulls him forward to press his lips to his brow.

“Tomorrow,” Thorin assures him. “I haven’t any beads here for the ends and I would find something to suit you. One from my youth, until I can have something made for you.”

Bilbo opens his eyes again and Thorin settles himself down against his pillows. Bilbo tucks himself under his arm when Thorin holds it up for him. It’s a while before Bilbo speaks again.

“You needn’t fuss. One of yours would be nice.”

Thorin’s hand finds its way back to his hair, feeling the silken strands as they curl through his fingers. 

“I would make you one myself and it would be expected, not a chore,” he assures the Hobbit. “When the strength returns to my arm, I will enter the forge myself to craft beads for you.”

Bilbo nuzzles against his chest and settles with his cheek against his chest. They’re both silent a beat before Bilbo tips his head up and asks, “ _Beads_? As in more than one?”

Thorin’s laugh shakes Bilbo’s body and he tightens his arm, lifting his head enough to press a kiss to the crown of his head, before he settles back again.

“Just two. We’ll keep it simple.”

Bilbo’s cheek presses against his chest again and he falls quiet once more. The fire crackles merrily in the hearth, casting the room in a warm glow that lulls them both toward sleep. 

Just as Thorin’s hand goes still in Bilbo’s hair, the Hobbit murmurs a soft, “Simple sounds good.”

“Yes,” Thorin agrees on a whisper. “It does.”

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback is very welcome; I've never written in this fandom before so I've likely made errors along the way.


End file.
